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If you want to go:

Aerosmith plays with opening act Hinder at 7:30 p.m. Dec. 15 at the Reno Events Center. The show is essentially sold out, according the REC, but a few tickets may be available at the box office before the show. Ticket broker www.TicketsNow.com had about 30 tickets for sale at press time (at grossly inflated prices). Details: 335-8800.

To hear the interview: Click on the purple "music" tab above, and scroll down. On the left side of the page is the music player with parts 1 and 2 of the interview.

All those hits albums: Joe Perry said he bought a farm in Vermont two years ago to run his horses. Perhaps he's got a big mortgage. How else to explain seven different Aerosmith best-of collections in the U.S., not including box sets? Here, we try to make sense of it.

1980: "Greatest Hits": The first best-of album, covering 10 of the band's biggest 1970s songs. With only 10 tracks, it's a reflection of the vinyl era, but it has sold nearly 10 million copies in America.

1988: "Gems": A companion piece to "Greatest Hits," the set was issued by Columbia and includes 12 more deeper cuts from the 1970s.

1994: "Big Ones": The first of the Geffen Records-era hits, covering only 1987 to 1994, with two new tracks out of the 15 on the album.

2001: "Young Lust: Aerosmith Anthology": Essentially a bloated two-disc version of "Big Ones" that covers the Geffen years.

2002: "O, Yeah: Ultimate Aerosmith Hits": Possibly the best of the collections, this is the first to include songs from the band's entire career. Two CDs, 33 tracks.

2005: "Gold": Part of the Universal "Gold" series, this set has 34 tracks on two discs, but it's mostly Geffen-era songs.

2006: "Devil's Got a New Disguise": This one cherry-picks tracks from the band's entire career, but with only 16 old songs and two new, unreleased ones, it's a bit light as a representation of the band. Joe Perry said this set was issued because the band didn't have a new studio record ready in time to tour.-- Kellner

Provided to the Reno Gazette-Journal

Provided to the Reno Gazette-Journal

Provided to the Reno Gazette-Journal

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Few artists that appeared in the 1970s have had as strong a run as Aerosmith. Most faded into the archives years ago, and the ones that remain are the best of their era -- Bruce Springsteen, Elton John, Billy Joel, AC/DC and Rod Stewart, for example (and none of them have a roller coaster named after them, as Aerosmith does at Disney World). So when Aerosmith plays tonight at the Reno Events Center, expect a hit parade -- one that began in 1975 with "Sweet Emotion" and continued right up to 2001 with the worthy "Jaded."

But the band isn't sticking merely to its fertile period from the late 1980s into the 1990s -- an era that saw more than 10 Billboard Top 20 hits, including "Dude (Looks Like a Lady)," "Love in and Elevator," "Janie's Got a Gun," and "Livin' on the Edge."

"We're still pulling some songs out we haven't played for a long time," said guitarist Joe Perry in an interview. "We're playing stuff that I know the fans haven't heard before, and that's only half the set. The other half is from the '90s and the last coupla records."

A look at recent Aerosmith sets, which have varied little from city to city on this tour, sees oldies like "Toys in the Attic," "Seasons of Wither" and "Draw the Line." But we won't spoil it for you any more by telling you the opener and encore (which you can find online at aeroforceone.com).

"It seems to work out pretty well," Perry said of the set. "It's kind of a few songs in there that people would be disappointed if we didn't play, then there's others that you can interchange one for the other and people will walk away happy."

But there's just no way to cram all of the band's favorites into the roughly 80-minute show they're doing now.

"I'm kinda digging keeping it a little shorter," Perry said. "You play with more intensity. It feels almost like it did in the early '70s, where you felt like you gotta play with everything you got because you've got to make an impression. We're not taking anything for granted, and that translates into a great show. "

When Aerosmith emerged in the early 1970s, singer Steven Tyler was barely recognizable as his voice fronted blues-based rockers like "Mama Kin." His soaring pipes wouldn't be the standard for a couple more years, on songs like "Sweet Emotion" and "Walk this Way."

That 1970s period ended rough for Aerosmith, when most of the band split in 1979. Tyler and Perry had been dubbed the Toxic Twins because of all the drugs and drinking they did, and that substance abuse was largely responsible for the burnout. But by 1985 the band had regrouped and released the telling "Done with Mirrors." A year later the band came back bigger than ever, buoyed by the Run-DMC collaboration that remade "Walk This Way." In 1987 Aerosmith made "Permanent Vacation" and unleashed a string of hits that resulted in a dozen Billboard Top 20 singles and four Grammys over the next 14 years.

But the past few years have ushered in another difficult period for Aerosmith. Drummer Joey Kramer, 56, was having shoulder problems in recent years and had his son fill in for some shows. Bassist Tom Hamilton, 55, underwent surgery for throat cancer this year and is currently sidelined. Tyler, 58, underwent throat surgery this year and had to recover his pipes. And just last month, Perry, 56, was clocked in the head by a boom camera while shooting footage for a NASCAR promotion, which is using the band's 1976 song "Back in the Saddle." Perry was nearly knocked unconscious.

"I was a little dazed for a few days," Perry said. "I don't remember the set, but everybody said I played good and made it through. I spent the rest of the next day with a lot of ice on my head."

As for Tyler, Perry said "his voice is as strong or stronger than ever. The first couple of weeks were shaky. You just gotta build it up again."

As the band moves on in its career, Perry was reminiscent, but reluctant to choose one era over another.

"It depends on how you define 'better,'" he said. "We certainly sold more records in the early '90s, but it was a whole different era. People were actually buying CDs. The way the band is playing now, it stands out to me more than some of the tours in the late '80s and early '90s. Clearly there was an intensity there. We had more hit singles on the charts as we played, but there's kind of a deeper thing going on now with the fans resonating with those early songs that we're playing. It's just a vibe on this tour. Maybe it is because it is one of the last tours we're going to do, and I know that. It's not like we have another 10 or 15 years in front of us."